People have asked me why weíre not more emotional,Ē Matheny said in his office after Sundayís game. ďThey say that we look subdued, always intense. That our actions are methodical, robotic at times. Thatís what got us here. This isnít the time to change it.Ē

Itís hard to argue with the managerís assessment. The Cardinals finished with 97 victories, most by a Cards team since 2005, and tied with Boston for No. 1 in the majors this year.

Their 54-27 showing at Busch Stadium matches the 1985 team for the best single-season home winning percentage (.667) by the Cardinals since 1944.

A postseason theme has emerged, and it echoes the mantra that surfaced before the start of 2013: remember the fall of 2012. Remember falling to San Francisco in the NLCS.

The Cardinalsí veterans still havenít forgotten. They still arenít over it. Itís why Matheny resists GM John Mozeliakís urgings to smile and put on a happier face.

Here's the most impressive aspect of the Cardinals' division championship: they prevailed over two other outstanding teams, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.

The 97-win Cardinals were better this year (regular season) than they were in 2011, when they won 90 games, and 2012, when they won 88.
Here are a few numbers that help put the Cardinals' Central title and No. 1 NL seed in perspective:

* Since MLB switched to a three-division format in each league in 1994, this was only the sixth time that a division had three 90-plus win teams. St. Louis won 97, Pittsburgh 94, and Cincinnati 90.
* Since the format change, this was only the second time that an NL division had three 90-win teams. In 2002 the NL West had Arizona (98 wins), San Francisco (95) and Los Angeles (92).
* The 2013 Cardinals faced more esteemed and difficult competition at the top of the division than any of the division-winning teams managed by Tony La Russa.

The Pirates were hardly pushovers; the Cardinals had to work like mad and kick in with a strong finish to put the division away, and didn't clinch until Game No. 160.

The Cardinals went 9-10 against Pittsburgh this season and were 11-8 vs. Cincinnati.

The Cardinals won only three of 10 games at PNC Park in Pittsburgh and split the 10 games at Cincinnati. The Cardinals were 6-3 against both teams at Busch Stadium.

The Cardinals (1st), Pirates (3rd) and Reds (5th) ranked among the top five in wins in the NL. The three teams were among the top 11 in wins in MLB. All three teams finished in the top five in the majors for best overall ERA, and each were in the top five MLB for best starting-pitching ERA.

The original purpose to this piece was to point out that the Cardinals managed to finish with the league's best record while competing in a division that had three 90-win teams for only the second time in the last 19 years of National League baseball.

The match between Chelsea and Manchester City on Thursday at Busch Stadium was the first high-level international match in St. Louis in years. With the way the city reacted, it probably won’t be the last.
“We’d come back here every day if we could,” said Charlie Stillitano of Relevent Sports, which put on the game. “St. Louis has been a great find for us.”

The game sold out more than 40,000 tickets in a little more than a day, and more than 10,000 fans came out to Busch on Wednesday for a Chelsea training session. “This is extraordinary,” Stillitano said.

“The way the teams were treated,” he said, “the teams have said they would come back in a second. They love it. The one thing that struck everyone was how nice everyone was in St. Louis. Everywhere we went, it was thank you for bringing the game here. That was really gratifying.”

The demand for tickets may have been enhanced by the absence of top-level soccer in St. Louis in recent years, but Stillitano said he didn’t think it would be necessary to wait a few years.

“We’d love to come back every year to St. Louis,” he said. “But our season is short, the end of the year like this and then in July and August in the preseason and can’t coincide with the Cardinals. But you can almost always find a game at the beginning or end of a tour that will fit in with the Cardinals schedule.”

Big week for Billikens

The St. Louis U. soccer team got to enjoy every part of the friendly match except for the game itself.
They were among the few people on hand on Tuesday when Chelsea worked out at Hermann Stadium – SLU players drove Chelsea players from the locker rooms at SLU to the stadium in golf carts – and they watched Wednesday’s practice from the Cardinals dugout, escorted by former SLU basketball player Kyle Cassity, who now works for the Cardinals. But by game time on Thursday, the team was on its way to Spain for a 10-day tour there.

“Pretty cool week,” said SLU coach Mike McGinty. “Missing the game is not ideal, but going to Madrid will be a lot of fun as well.”

SLU will play two and possibly a third game against fourth division Spanish teams and also attend practice sessions of first division Spanish clubs, including Atletico Madrid. SLU will also attend Atletico Madrid’s match on Sunday.

“It’s fun for these guys to see the best in the world up close,” McGinty said. “That’s as important as anything.”

As for McGinty, was he picking up anything by watching Chelsea practice? “They do the same stuff we do,” he said. “It just looks a lot different when they do it.”

Moving on

Three Chelsea players will be heading back to England after the game, missing the second match between the clubs in New York on Saturday. Frank Lampard, Gary Cahill and Ashley Cole are heading home to join England’s national team for a pair of friendly matches against Ireland and Brazil. Cahill and Cole were both in the starting lineup on Thursday, while Lampard was a scratch.
The cost of business

By acquiring Major League Soccer’s newest expansion team, Manchester City put a big dent in the hopes of a team coming to St. Louis.

Man City is owned by members of the Abu Dhabi royal family – advertising boards at the game touted visitabudhabi.ae, an Abu Dhabi tourism site – and they didn’t flinch at paying a $100 million expansion fee. But that sets the price for future expansion teams to pay, and in a market the size of St. Louis, that’s a lot of money to pay out. And anyone acquiring a team would face the added expense of building a stadium.

To a certain extent, though, the question is moot. No one from St. Louis is actively pursuing a team, and if the league moves beyond 20 teams, it will likely be looking at cities in Florida.

Great game by Yadi today, but I thought Wainy looked a bit off, still a very quality start by him though. Lets take the next 3.

He was off, but he also got BABIP'ed to death. Through the first three innings he'd given up 8 hits and maybe one ball was solidly hit. They had two flares that dropped in No Man's Land, a grounder that hit the bag and popped over Adams' head, a liner that popped out of Adams' glove, and a couple of other 39 hoppers up the middle.

Oh, and it looks like C-Mart is the answer, as he was sent down to AAA w/ them calling up Marte. Given Marte's suckitude, it looks like they are going to stretch out Little Pedro.

He was off, but he also got BABIP'ed to death. Through the first three innings he'd given up 8 hits and maybe one ball was solidly hit. They had two flares that dropped in No Man's Land, a grounder that hit the bag and popped over Adams' head, a liner that popped out of Adams' glove, and a couple of other 39 hoppers up the middle.

Oh I know that, I mentioned it on their Royals thread, most of them were BS bloop singles because their hitters are so weak and they just found the spots. They got only 3 runs on 13 hits, all singles except one hit. I had to chuckle at that.

Oh I know that, I mentioned it on their Royals thread, most of them were BS bloop singles because their hitters are so weak and they just found the spots. They got only 3 runs on 13 hits, all singles except one hit. I had to chuckle at that.

That was the difference in the ballgame - banjo hitters that won't take walks simply won't win anything...ever. It's just out of date thinking; they've built a dead-ball era squad with no speed to supplement it.

That was the difference in the ballgame - banjo hitters that won't take walks simply won't win anything...ever. It's just out of date thinking; they've built a dead-ball era squad with no speed to supplement it.

I don't get it at all.

I will never understand why certain teams and players don't get the value of a walk. It just baffles me.